My Ryzen 1800X Upgrade Diary

Thread best viewed with the linear, chronological layout, not that default forked mess that links replies directly to posts.

So, decided to clean up the thread and remake it, and basically detail my journey. I had been using the following system for a while:

ASUS Sabertooth 990FX Gen3/R2

AMD FX-8350 @ 4.6ghz w/ Corsair H105

24GB G.Skill DDR3 2133

Sapphire Fury Nano

1TB Samsung 850 Evo (Boot & Media)

512GB Samsung 850 Evo (Games)

240GB OCZ Vertex 3 (Online backups)

I had decided to upgrade to Ryzen given the much improved IPC capability, and had actually ordered everything a couple of months ago, but when Microsoft said

I returned them and basically had resigned myself to using what I had until it blew up. Couple months later and Unofficial Patch Unblocks Windows 7 and 8.1 Updates for Kaby Lake, Ryzen came out which removed the update blocks, which were literally just "is_processor_supported" tags in the Windows Update file, which made Ryzen viable again. I had decided to wait for the 4 core 8 thread processors next month, but I figured when it comes time for resale the 1800X would hold its value better, I decided to take the leap again, and went with

ASUS Prime X370-Pro

AMD Ryzen 7 1800X

Corsair Vengeance LPX 16GB DDR4 3200

Samsung 960 Evo 250GB NVMe SSD

I decided to also go ahead and upgrade to a Samsung 960 Evo 250GB NVMe boot drive since I had to reinstall Windows anyway, so it'd be the best time to do it. I wanted to get the 1TB version, but it's $430, and I couldn't justify that considering what I was already spending. I also decided to go with Saturday delivery so I could hopefully get the system built and bughunted before the workweek. Well, Saturday came, FedEx came, got my tower tore apart, went to put in the CPU, and the box was EMPTY! The bottom seal was also cut, so I assume either someone in the warehouse didn't properly check a return or someone in the warehouse stole it. Nice little conversation with Amazon later, and a couple of days since they couldn't get a replacement to me until Monday, and I'm finally setup to go.

Or I thought I was. Windows 7 Setup would not capture my mouse or keyboard no matter which port I had it connected to or even if I used the PS/2 connector. Multiple keyboards and mice tried later, as well as some expletives, I decided to go ahead and try Windows 8.1, I had a copy I got for cheap. I had considered trying it first since it has 3 more years of support over 7 plus native NVMe support, but as there were no Windows 8.1 drivers mentioned I was afraid it didn't work, but it did just fine, and everything installed with drivers. I went ahead and started installing my programs and moving my media to my external drive so I could format my 850 Evo 1TB and use just as a media drive, but when I went to format it, it wouldn't format, not in Samsung Magician (secure erase), not in Windows, and not even in the bootable USB that Samsung Magician creates. Turns out that Windows 8.1 had just attached itself to the existing bootmgr despite being installed on a completely new drive, it still relied on Windows 7, and it also broke Windows Update.

3 drive images and Windows 8.1 setup again, I deleted all partitions on all disks and started from scratch, and this solved all my problems. Installed a gig or so of updates using WSUS Offline Update, and still had about a gig more to download from Windows Update, the patch worked like a charm. Thanks to most programs using %AppData% for data storage a simple copy and paste from old to new meant I had little to actually configure, didn't lose emails or anything. Game re-installation was what I was most worried about, but the bulk of them I repurchased on GoG, and since their installs were still in place on my games drive (restored from image), all I needed to do was scan and verify to get them up and going, took all of 300mb, though it would be much easier if GoG Galaxy had a "Verify/Repair All" button. Some games aren't actually installs, such as Doomsday, and some of them I haven't bothered to reinstall yet.

It's 5 days later and I'm remembering how nice it is to have a computer that just works. My RAM doesn't run at full speed yet, still waiting on ASUS to release an AEGSA 1.0.0.6 update. Overclocking to 4ghz was easy, though it won't stabilize any higher, which is in line with the reviews that Ryzen tops out at 4-4.1ghz, but with the much improved IPC capability it's still a great gain.

I left out a few things, but basically that's how it went. I'm still dealing with a few idiosyncrasies and bugs in Windows 8.1, namely the "This PC" tile on the start screen changing to "computer" and a different icon, and it scares the heck out of me that AMD seems to be dropping Windows 8.1 support just as RX Vega is about to be released, not that the Fury Nano is a slacker in the graphics department I would just hate to see me have to nurse this thing for 6 more years or longer.

So I got curious, what was the difference between a 4ghz and 3.6ghz 1800X in Heaven (3DMark is too much of a synthetic, at least Heaven is more game like)? Answer is...nothing. Who would have thought I'd be GPU limited with a Fury Nano at 1920x1200? Says something about the power of Ryzen.

Hmm, well this is odd... I ran the Heaven benchmark again using the same settings as before since my RAM is now able to run at 2800mhz vs 2133mhz, and I wanted to see if I would improve in performance since Ryzen performs better with faster RAM.

ive used this quite alot. the only bug about heaven is the min fps will always be different depending when and where you start bench. i just ran same setup as you, with same card. but 4.0ghz @3200mhz .just 1 card. oddly with 8350fx with 2 furys runs more than double the score with a 4.7 ghz and 2400 ram at 5760x1080 eyefinity i scored 3700-3900 on average i cant reproduce the fx cpu eyefinity but it ran good. so here is ryzen 1 monitor. for some reason i cant get it to run 5760x1080 anymore . hmmm? this with old 1004a bios . i havent put 1006a in yet. 17.5.2 driver.

well, you have to think i didnt cut any corners crosshair hero g.skill flares 3200 that run 3467 also factory same stick but this is 3200mhz. with 14 timings and win 7 is known to run awsome with ryzen

from what i have read and seen. it seems ryzen really starts to excel at 3200 + rapidly. so im hoping to get 3600. and maybe buy some 4000mhz eventually. crazy isnt it.

Just about dead on , but way more than i would have expected. 1800 score is a ( wow factor ) for me, and would be very happy with that score as a default run.

But think BlackZion was running Win NT and have done a full blown custom install apart what would be expected from Win7. Different setups and not sure if anyone is using a real DIY testbench, or if you guys went budget or spent money like a person wouldnt want

yea if you research you will find win7 vs win10 in gaming win7 does usually out perform. with varying differences ofcourse , at some large and some small gains. all windows are nt based but i am not sure exactly what black-zions operating system truly is.

Agree, without real hardware to support any of windows-10 proclaimed new great features, i have seen almost no performance gains at all. Vega-Instinct looked promising, thought to be Hawaii, but turned out Vega bigger one was Polaris, which not really game geared.

No I don't, and I don't have any reason to alter the base clock as it will not go beyond 4ghz, which I can do at 40x100. Power limit has long been set to +50%. Fury Nano IS Fiji, it is the same GPU as in the Fury X.

ok only reason i asked was because i saw it was 3593ghz that threw me off. your fury x clock is 1000 mine 1050 which should even out the difference since i only have 3584 shaders or what not you have more.. i want to see you hit 1600. you know what to do

in the end, that trc bankcycle time needs to be 63 and getting passed that 3;44 ratio fsb is the hump... yea those corsairs are A b&^#@ .. basically, its like a leap of faith to jump the hump. 1.45v on dram and dont forget if your board has a vboot for dram for post time voltage. i wonder if 17-18-18-18-36 or 38 with bank time trc 63 would pass over with 1.45 v. i dont think ive seen those with 54 run 3200 only 63. and plenty of juice to help it train then drop volt back a bit.. you do have soc at 1.1875 yes? it will need all of that...i had beta 1006 in and it had option for 2T . option 18-20-20-20-38 /63 maybe.. play wif it.. but score looks alot better. and that beta is very how should i say , odd acting...

i got a newer beta now its 1401 pre release not the 9945. 1401 is actuall number for crosshair boards. i havent tried it but there a guy in here running it but its better just not quite ready so i may wait.

thats actually interesting. we know underclocked ram with better latency usually shows better results most of the time. but from what i am gathering the real performance dont start until 3200+ so anything under that, may aswell trim cl .. i am surprised with ryzens cache that still works. atleast for now..!

Well i was hoping to do another comparison with heaven bench. it seems i ran into a slight issue there. um long story wasnt fun. basically i cant execute it and its in multiple files..i got hit. i dug it out clean reinstalled to no avail. so hopefully you like unigine valley bench its actually better. if you want to compare. same stats and engine but with more liquid effects and draw distance. so i bumped mine up a hair since your getting up there i figured i better try something to stay ahead . so give the valley bench a whirl see what ya get. im curious.!

Unigine's SuperPosition (DX12) benchmark has been out for a while now - but it tends to lean towards favorable results on my NVidia set up. It reads SLI fine and uses both cards - on my RX480's it sees both, but only uses one. My second card remains completely untouched. I've sent this to them a couple of weeks ago along with log files etc - maybe it'll get fixed down the road.